“Gaara! What are you doing, sleeping lazily? Stand the hell up! Hey! Gaara, are you listening to me?”
“Naruto!” Kohana called angrily. Even if she couldn’t believe it as well, it was becoming increasingly harder for her to understand thanks to Naruto. She didn’t want him emphasizing the fact that Gaara, the Kazekage, was dead.
“Stop it!”
Naruto gritted his teeth, so close to drawing blood.
“Yeah, yeah, don’t you get it? He’s well dead, hm?”
One single tear leaked out of Naruto’s eye.
“Give him back…”
Both Akatsuki members did not move and merely stared at Naruto, waiting for an attack. As they had anticipated, Naruto rushed forward. He was ready to inflict all of his pain and rage on them, just to take Gaara. The promise of bloodshed was evident in her eyes. Kohana watched this with sad eyes and a frown; she didn’t like what was about to happen one bit.
“Give Gaara back, you bastards!”
However, Kakashi was quick to stop the angered Jinchuuriki, sliding in front of the boy in a succeeded attempt at blocking him from going any further.
“Calm down,” he started, “if you go rushing in there without thinking, they’ll destroy you.”
Kohana was no longer paying attention to either Naruto and Kakashi. Her eyes were now firmly locked on both Deidara and Sasori, watching their every move.
“I’ll look after this one,” Sasori said as he eyed Gaara’s lifeless face. “It seems like that Jinchuuriki wants to take this one back.”
Deidara looked at his partner. “This’ll probably make you angry, but… I’ll handle the Jinchuuriki, un.”
Sasori glared. “The assignment is one person to one beast… don’t push it, Deidara.”
“If an artist doesn’t get high levels of inspiration, his sentiments are dulled… Sasori no Danna. It’s said that the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki is considerably strong… un.”
“What? You call those explosions fine art? Fine art is something wonderful that’s left long into the future… eternal beauty,” Sasori differed.
“They involve the same skilled labor, I respect you, but fine art is the beauty of that single fleeting moment of explosion.”
Kohana frowned distastefully as Sakura muttered, “Wha… what kind of people are these…?” How particularly strange it was for two S-ranked Akatsuki members to argue about something such as the true definition of “fine art”.
However, Naruto could hardly care less.
“Stop playing around, you bastards…” Withdrawing a scroll from his weapons pouch, he spread it out before him and out came a strangely-formed and unfold-able Fūma Shuriken. It looked much heavier and more lethal than the original once.
Naruto grabbed the shuriken by its ring and tossed it at the two S-ranked nin.
What everyone else hadn’t expected, however, was a metallic scorpion’s tail to repel the weapon.
“Deidara, you little shit… are you trying to piss me off?”
“Well, then… I was right when I said it’d probably make you angry, mm?”
The white, clay bird next to Deidara immediately grabbed Gaara with its mouth. “My fine art is explosions… completely different to your little puppet show! Un!”
Provoked, Sasori’s tail immediately went for Deidara, but the bomber immediately dodged, jumping on his clay bird in the process as it flew away. “See you, master.”
Without further notice, Gaara’s body was fully taken in by the bird’s mouth.
Kohana flinched in surprise at the sound of Kakashi’s voice. “Naruto, Kohana and I will handle the one outside. Sakura and Chiyo-sama, take care of this one… but until Team Gai gets back, try not to overdo it.”
“Got it!”
“Let’s go, Kohana!”
The girl pursed her lips and immediately dashed out of the cave side by side with Kakashi. She just hoped from the bottom of her heart that Sakura and Chiyo would be okay. With Kakashi, her and Naruto chasing after Gaara, she was confident that they would make it because Deidara was more outnumbered than Sasori was… not to mention, she recalled the fact that Sasori was a master puppeteer.
Soon enough, Sakura and Chiyo would be outnumbered.
Biting her lip, Kohana just hoped that Team Gai would come to Sakura and Chiyo's aid soon.
“Kakashi-sensei… are you sure that I shouldn’t have stayed there?”
Kakashi kept his eyes to the front. “It’s true that you can handle lots of enemies with your kenjutsu, but the top priority right now is Gaara. In terms of speed, with you around, we may just have the upper-hand. We should take what we can… besides, Team Gai will be able to serve as back-up for Sakura. I’m sure she can hold out for a long time.”
Still not entirely convinced, Kohana was forced to let it slide and just nodded her head. Although she couldn’t deny that Kakashi made sense.
Both Jōnin jumped and landed right next to Naruto.
Looking up at Deidara, Kohana prepared herself, sheathing her sword at the same time Kakashi lifted his hitai-ate to reveal his Sharingan.
Meanwhile, Sakura swallowed.
‘I can tell from facing him… the huge difference in battle experience, and… his amount of skills.’
The pink-haired kunoichi was surprised by Chiyo courageously moving forward across the water as she reached into her long, black sleeves.
“Sakura, don’t be afraid… I’m here, stay behind me.”
Reaching further inside, Chiyo took out a wire from inside each sleeve. Various kunai knives lined the wires and Chiyo brought them forth, slipping the wires away from the pommels of the kunai as they were sent forward in a controlled volley towards Sasori, who had easily deflected all of the kunai.
However, he was unable to properly deflect a kunai that had torn through his coat.
Before Sakura was properly able to comprehend it, the coat was completely removed to reveal a quite horrifying display. The scorpion’s tail emerged from the mouth of a mask that was attached to the puppet of Sasori’s back and his arms were quite easily defined as inhumane. Seeing as his left arm was ball jointed and forged into a type of bulging and dangerous contraption, whilst his right arm simply seemed like they were just placed together by various wooden parts. As expected, the puppet was positioned into all fours, unsurprisingly giving off that sickening aura it originally gave.
“If you plan to oppose me, then I have no choice… why don’t you and that kid join my collection. Eh, Chiyo?”
Sakura’s eyes widened in fear as her entire mind nearly blanked. ‘Wha… what is that…?’
“First, I’ll drag out your entrails… then when I’ve ripped off all your skin, I’ll clean off all the blood.”
“Sakura,”Chiyo began, “that is not Sasori’s real body… it’s a puppet.”
“I’ll treat it so that it doesn’t decay, then stock it up with the rest of my puppet collection. Like the old hag said, this me is but one of the bodies… also with the two of you, it will become exactly three hundred bodies. That is my fine art.”
A/N: So sorry it was short. This is the chapter I've been meaning to continue, but now I just couldn't do it. :/
Although you have to admit, this is a nice cliffhanger (because I'm pretty sure it's a cliffhanger in the manga as well. XD)
